1 Question Torments Family Of Murdered Woman: Why

Relatives of an Orlando woman found murdered in Alabama last week wondered why on Sunday - her 29th birthday.

A fisherman found the body of Connie Wilkins Powell in a beach parking lot early Wednesday, just hours after she was stabbed to death, police said.

''Oh, my God, it couldn't be her,'' her 53-year-old mother, Imogene Wilkins of Cochran, Ga., said when police contacted her Friday. ''As Christians, we ask, 'Why did it happen? Why was it her?' ''

Lyndahl Earl Sale, 23, of Pensacola, was charged with Powell's killing on Thursday. He is being held without bail at the Baldwin County, Ala., jail.

Investigators from the Orange Beach Police Department in Alabama who worked on the case were unavailable for comment.

Wilkins said police told her the two met at a Pensacola bar-restaurant Tuesday night. Powell was in Pensacola selling magazines on a job she had just taken about a month ago.

Her body was found near the Perdido Pass Bridge, 15 miles west of Pensacola.

''They don't know why'' Sale would have wanted to kill Powell, Wilkins said. ''They seem to think there was an argument.''

She said Powell, who had a 5-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son, had lived in Orlando for about 10 years.

She said her daughter had worked various jobs, ranging from being a waitress to managing a mobile home park, and phoned her regularly.

''She phoned me Mother's Day and wished me a happy Mother's Day,'' Wilkins said. ''She said she'd see me this weekend.'' Powell also told her daughter, Brandy, who is staying with Wilkins, that they would go to church.

Powell and her husband of 12 years, Gary, an Orlando electronics technician, had been separated for more than a year. But he said the two were still ''seeing each other.''